On some wintry morning, I saw a bird on my front lawn. It was a very still bird with greyish feathers and a strange demeanour. A flightless bird. One who had scattered feathers everywhere around it on the green grass. An upside-down bird. Curiously and soundly asleep among the everyday happenings of a Wednesday.
But perhaps it would be more accurate to say it was no longer a bird. Its freedoms were stolen away, wings clipped slightly more than you would expect from a house pet. And far more violently at that too. Past the array of fluff you could see something that resembled a bird; or at least, a headless one who had met its untimely end. Gone too soon.
Who knows what kind of life this bird once lived. Though I imagine it couldn’t have been too exciting… other than its last moments, of course. Was it ravaged by some common housecat? It would have to have been a feline that was not quite feral, but not quite domesticated either. But perhaps, in some sense, we’re all a little savage. Playing the survival game. Just not to the same extent.
A silly thought. I’m just entertaining hypotheticals for fun. I can say all these things, but at the end of the day, it’s just a flightless bird. That’s all I see.
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